Emily Miller and The Missing Wi-Fi Password
by Punk Rocker Fairy
Summary: Join Emily and her fellow muggle friends as they become exchange students at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry and there search for the wifi password and a plug for their phones.


For people who could move things from five feet away with a stick, they seemed to be weirdly obsessed with Misty's hair. My short, curvaceous friend walked closely next to me, not thrilled by the added attention. Professor Longbottom had told us that there were people called metamorphacus's that could change their hair color, but they weren't common. Her lavender hair stood out. We were at the front of a heard of about forty muggle students that had been selected for the Hogwarts exchange program. Misty and I were with a few other students to enter into the fourth year at the school instead of going to the specialty schools that we had initially applied for in NYC. When it had been announced that this program was opening up for the top public schools, we had applied and gotten in together. Now we were standing in front of a wall at Kings Cross and our chaperone, a short woman named Mrs. Yardly, was telling us to run straight at it. At this point the idea that this was all an elaborate prank crossed my mind.

"You first Emily." Misty muttered next to me, eyeing the wall warily before glancing up at me, "If I crash I might have to replace my glasses again."

She nudged me forward with her elbow and once again tried to reassure us, "Really dear, the likelihood of crashing is very low."

I glanced back down at Misty and cast my eyes to look back at the other nervous faces of the students. With a sigh, I pushed the cart I had been given towards the wall at a run. When I was almost there I closed my eyes and cringed preparing myself to hit-

Nothing.

I opened my eyes when I only felt a strange feeling, like a bucket of ice water being dumped on me, and nothing else, certainly no brick wall. In front of me was a train platform teeming with movement and a massive red train waiting. I apparently waited a little too long and felt something crash into me, namely, 130 lbs. of cute mess named Misty. With a grunt I heaved her off her cart that she had fallen on top of. Her face was cherry red as she righted herself and muttered a soft thanks. Not wanting a repeated accident I quickly grabbed her and pulled her out of the way with me. A kindly looking old man in a red and black uniform approached us and asked, "Do you ladies need help with your baggage?"

I was about to say no, but then I remembered that Misty had insisted on bringing two extra suitcases for "necessities, I swear" and thought better of it. He took Misty's extra bags and I took mine, Misty trailed behind dragging her over stuffed suitcase. We stuck to ourselves until we were settled in an empty compartment, the others would find their own spots.

"Maybe we should invite some of the others." Misty said after we had sat in silence for a few minutes.

I thought back to the other students that had been selected for the exchange program and cringed. Most of them were so involved with themselves their relationship status on Facebook should be "taken".

"I don't think so."

"They could be nice, you didn't really talk to them earlier."

"I didn't really want to." That might have been a little harsh, so I glanced over at Misty and added, "Besides, why would I try and deal with them when I've got you?"

"Aww! You're too sweet. Seriously though Emily, make some friends besides me! I mean I know that I'm awesome, but you need to socialize with other people too."

"I suppose…"

Misty fawned over herself a few more seconds, but then the doors to our compartment opened. I side-eyed the person in the doorway from my position next the window. A small girl with wild red hair and green eyes stood in the door, looking between the Misty and I with a nervous smile. Misty looked a little alarmed by the intrusion and croaked out a too loud, "Hey."

To think this was the girl telling me to be more social. I rolled my eyes, but still straightened up and extended my hand, the poor girl was obviously almost as bad as Misty in social situations.

"Hey, I'm Emily and this is Misty."

The girl eased a bit and took my hand loosely and mumbled in a thick English accent, "Hello, I'm Lily. I'm sorry to be a bother, but do you have a spare seat?"

In an instant my heart melted for her. My mama bear instincts kicked in and I quickly patted the spot next to me with a hurried, "Of course hon." I glanced at Misty and she just nodded her acceptance of our new occupant. Lily was…small. Just a little shorter than Misty's 4' 11'' and probably a solid foot shorter than me. She didn't have the curves and her face still had the childhood chub to it with a thick pair of black glasses precariously balanced on a small nose that lost their battle with gravity when she collapsed down on to the seat next to me and tumbled off her face. Her face turned red and she scrambled for the glasses on the floor but Misty, having lost the same battle several times herself, saw what had been about to happen and was ready to help the moment it happened. She bent down quickly and grabbed the glasses and handed them to Lily. The smaller girl smiled shyly and put the glasses back in their rightful place.

"So Lily, what year are you?" I asked cheerfully and loudly, obviously moving on from the glasses incident she was so embarrassed about.

"I'm a first year actually, I'm very excited! My brothers have been telling me all about it for years and now it's finally my turn. James and Al always make fun of me for being the baby, but I'll show them! Aunt Hermione showed me some wand techniques this summer when the boys weren't there and she's the best witch EVER!"

"That sounds exciting, I'm sure you'll be great." I said sweetly, she was adorable. "I get the brother thing too. My brother is two and half years older than me and never lets me forget it."

Misty jumped in at this point and said, "And don't even get me started on Megan, ugh. Let me tell you, older sisters are way worse than older brothers."

This once again set Misty and I on the debate about brothers vs. sisters that we had been having pretty much since we met a few years ago in 4th grade. After a while Lily got comfortable enough to join in, having experience with both big brothers and close older female cousins. The train began to move and time passed and topics changed, as we got farther along. Lily was a sweet girl and got along great with Misty. This didn't surprise me, as she seemed like a carbon copy of what Misty was like four years ago. After we were a couple hours in the topic of houses came up.

"I don't know which I want to get into. Both my parents and oldest brother were put in Gryffindor, but my younger brother is a Ravenclaw."

"So if I understand this, you put on a magic hat, it reads your mind, it evaluates your traits when you're eleven, and decides what group of people you'll be around constantly for the next seven years and the reputation you have for the rest of your life?" I asked incredulously.

"Um, yes"

"I can tell you right now I am a way different person than I was when I was eleven. It also takes a few stereotyped traits in a child and sticks it with them permanently. What if you change? Actually, no "what if", you change as you grow, everybody does. That doesn't make sense and doesn't seem like a stable way to encourage growth in children."

This entire concept seemed incredibly flawed to me, but Misty interrupted me before I could continue, "Emily, it's their tradition and we need to respect it. Remember anthropology class, we have to accept their society without judgment if it works for them."

"Why should I accept a flawed system when people could make it better?"

"It's really not bad", Lily added somewhat defensively, "You can still hang out with other people, and it really doesn't decide you're fate forever or anything. Yes the reputation sticks with you, but that's not all people see."

"I guess…"

"Anyway, based on this I'd guess Gryffindor. Home of the brave and loyal."

"I feel like that's a compliment so thanks."

"What about me?" Misty asked, not wanting to get left out.

Lily looked at her for a few minutes, scanning her with her eyes until nodding solemnly and mock seriously said, "Definitely a Slytherin, I can tell from your cunning and selfishness."

Misty looked at her in horror and tears began to well up in her eyes. She didn't get the Lily was joking.

I commented before the tears started to fall, "She's joking."

Lily realized her mistake and jumped to help me cheer up Misty, "I was! I'm sorry I'm not good at joking. I'm not very funny either. Actually I think you'd probably be in Hufflepuff since you're such a sweet person."

"Really?" Misty asked, sniffling a little and blinking to try and get rid of the tears.

"Yeah, you're like one of the nicest people I've met and I've only known you a few hours."

"Aww thanks! You're really sweet too. Hey! Maybe we'll both get in to Hufflepuff and we can hang out all of the time!"

The two of them huddled closer and started enthusing about their potential future in Hufflepuff. With any luck we would all get in and I wouldn't have to worry about talking to other people and trying to make new friends like Misty had suggested earlier. I left them too their conversation to find a bathroom on the train. Lily had said we were probably getting closer and I wanted to get cleaned up a little bit. If there was one thing my family had taught me, presentation was everything. If you acted like you knew what you were doing and were confident, then other people would believe it. This was a new place and a very different environment than what I was used to, I needed to go into this prepared.

The bathroom was at the end of the corridor and I slid in quickly before anyone else had the same idea as me. I looked at my reflection and began to evaluate. My reddish brown and blonde ombre hair was mussed, my dark red lipstick on small bowed lips was mostly gone, and the eyeliner around my small green eyes was hopelessly smudged. I would have to re-do all of it. I took my make up bag out of my messenger bag and got to work. I was finishing up the wings of my eyeliner when there was a banging on the door. I thought back and realized I'd probably been in there for twenty minutes. I felt my face heat up and saw my cheeks tinge pink, but all the same straightened up and put on my best bored expression. I opened the door and stepped out of the bathroom with as much grace and poise I could muster. I glanced at the angry person waiting on me and looked him up and down. He was tall and lean with dark hair, brown eyes, and covered in freckles. He looked to be about my age and very annoyed.

I heaved a sigh to further project my boredom with his antics and asked, "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, you can move so I can use the toilet!" He said, almost yelling.

"Whatever" I said, brushing past him to go back to my compartment. Misty was used to me taking a while to do makeup but Lily might wonder where I was.

However, the boy's next comment stopped me dead in my tracks, "Girls, always need to make sure they're so pretty and taking so long. Bunch of false advertising that is."

I froze, and turned on the spot with a low and dangerous, "Excuse me?"

"Come on it's true right? You girls always load up on make up and give guys the wrong idea about what you look like. It's false advertising." He responded, smiling to himself at his "cleverness".

"Except it's not because we're not for sale you dipshit. I wear make up for myself, not for boys. It's an art and just because you're not able to do it doesn't mean you should trash talk us for it."

I could practically feel the steam coming from my ears at this point, and I think the boy could tell. He began to look a little worried and began to back away with his hands up, "Look, I didn't mean anything by it okay? I'm sorry."

"James! Are you bothering Emily?"

I spun around for the source of the yelling and saw Lily. She was making good time up the hallway with a glare directed at the boy. I glanced back at him and then back to Lily, "You know this guy?"

She sighed, "Unfortunately, this is my oldest brother, James."

"Unfortunately?" He yelled, directing his attention to Lily, "I'll have you know I am a great older brother."

Lily looked at him like she was looking at grass growing. She looked back at me and asked, "You coming back to the compartment?"

I looked back at James before saying, "I was thinking I'd educate your brother on feminism and the patriarchy, but I don't know how much he would understand. They are big words after all."

"James, were you making girl jokes again? I'll tell mom and dad!" Lily fussed, obviously having dealt with this before.

"I'm sorry okay, I am very sorry and am a dumb sexist boy! Don't tell mom and dad!" James pleaded, looking even more worried.

Lily contemplated for a minute before answering, "I'll think about it. Come on Emily."

We left him to the bathroom after that, a smug smile on our faces. He deserved to sweat a bit after that comment. We got back and Misty looked at our faces, concern crossing her features.

"Everything okay?"

"It's fine." I said, returning to my spot near the window.

Lily sat next to Misty and excitedly filled in her new older friend, adding in some extra details to add to the drama and excitement. I just relaxed near the window for the last half hour of the trip. The three of us changed into our new uniforms when we started to see buildings in the distance. They were grey and boring had knee length skirts that were a little short on me and a little long on Misty to both our chagrin. The rolling hills began to flatten and we pulled up and finally stopped in a small town Lily told us was called Hogsmede. We shuffled off the train and more men and women in red and gold uniforms came and got our trunks, assuring us they would be waiting in our rooms when we arrived. It all seemed a little too convenient to me but then again I was dealing with people who could turn birds into cups. The three of us huddled together on the new platform and I looked around, trying to figure out where to go. I looked to the left and saw the single largest person I have ever laid eyes on.

"Holy shit." I muttered under my breath.

This guy had a huge black beard with long black hair and a brown and ratty duster that was covered in pockets of assorted size and colors. He carried a lantern in one hand and waved with the other. It took me a moment to comprehend that he was yelling for first years and exchange students.

Wait that's me.

I shook my head and jabbed the others to indicate we were moving. Lily and Misty turned towards the huge man, and while Misty's jaw dropped like mine had, Lily just beamed and ran towards him.

"Hagrid!"

The little girl took a running leap and hugged the man. He responded quickly and hugged her back just as fiercely, laughing all the while, so much so that her feet were not touching the ground. He put her down after a moment with a large lopsided smile.

"I'm so happy you're here Lily. Maybe you can calm down your brothers antics a bit for me? I don mind so much, but the poor headmistress is going grey even faster if that possible."

Lily just giggled and said, "I'll try, but no promises." She turned then, remembering us and ushered us over and introduced us, "Hagrid, these are my new friends Misty and Emily. Their transfer students and will be fourth years with Al."

The large man, Hagrid, pulled us both under one large arm in a strange hug and said enthusiastically, "Any friend of Lily here's is a friend of mine. Welcome to Hogwarts!"

"Is it in Hogsmede?" Misty asked, looking around a little disappointedly. We had heard it was huge.

Hagrid and Lily just laughed before Hagrid said, "No dear, you're about to get on the boats, and then you'll see it. Make your way over so you can all get a boat together. I'll see you all again later. Have fun tonight!"

Hagrid said goodbye to Lily and continued on down the platform, then Lily pulled our sleeves over towards the forested shoreline. Small boats waited at docks and we all piled into one with a three other girls. Two were other transfer students named Briar and Halley. Briar was tall and willowy with long thin brown hair and a pointed nose, and Halley was a little shorter than me and was curvy with dark wavy hair and big green eyes covered by thin glasses. The last girl was a witch named Martha who had dark skin and amber eyes and gorgeous curly hair. We didn't have much time to do anything other than introduce ourselves before the boat started moving.

I won't lie, I freaked out a little bit.

"How? Where's the motor? Is there a rope?" I said a little too loud and franticly, loosing my carefully crafted calm. I wasn't scared of a lot of things, but water was definitely one of them.

Misty just leaned over and murmured, "Um Emily, magic remember?"

I blushed and settled back in my seat and sat straight, trying to keep an air of dignity. That was fine until Misty nudged me and I looked up. In front of me was the most beautiful building I'd ever seen. In fact, calling it a building seemed insulting.

I whispered to Misty, "They weren't exaggerating the castle thing, were they?"

She just shook her head and we stared together. The massive castle on top of a hill and was lit up by fires in the windows and torches on the lower wall. I don't know how much time passed but we eventually landed at the shore near the castle. It was a short walk up the hill and we were ushered into a small room with a large set of intricately carved doors Misty leaned over to me about to say something, but a throat cleared to our right and we all looked back over to the doors. Professor Longbottom, the man we had met for orientation back home, was standing in front of the large doors and had a huge smile on his face while he waited for everyone to quiet down and look at him. He cleared his throat again and started to speak.

"Welcome everyone to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This is and old and proud institution of learning, and I hope you will also come to see it as a home. As you all know this year is very special. When wizards and witches came out to the world two years ago an idea was put in the works that some muggle students would come to magical school so that they could learn more about our culture and who we were. You will be sorted into houses like the other students and will take classes that learn more about magical theory and the less magic heavy subjects. There are also a few muggle teachers with us now that will be covering other subjects for you so you don't have to worry about falling behind. All of you, whether or not you realize it, are very brave. If you ever feel discouraged or scared, remember that every single one of you was handpicked for this and the decision wasn't made lightly. For you first years, you couldn't have started at a better time. You'll get to experience all of this right along with the new students, and if you would like to sit in on some of their classes you will be allowed to. For the exchange students, you will be paired with people in the houses you are sorted into and you will learn through each other about not only the school, but also the magic and muggle world in general. Once again, welcome to Hogwarts."

When he finished speaking the doors behind him swung open and he turned and briskly walked in. The room was huge with four long tables parallel across the hall with one shorter table at the front with what I could only assume to be administration seated. I looked up and gasped. A beautiful projection of the night sky that seemed to be in real time covered the whole of the cavernous ceiling. It was possibly the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I didn't want to look like a gaping tourist so I quickly corrected myself and looked back down and scanned the crowd. We were walking down the middle of the room with two of the long tables on either side of us. The students sitting at the tables seemed to be color coordinated, so I assumed these were the different houses we had learned about. When I looked at the faces of the students, I saw everything from eagerness and excitement to absolute and total disgust. We had been told the decision was controversial, but I was beginning to think it that was an understatement. I subtly took Misty's hand next to me, not wanting to let my only real friend here out of my sight. She simply glanced up at me and smiled encouragingly.

We came to a stop a few feet from the front table where a Professor Longbottom stood next to a stool with a ratty old pointed hat on it. The thing looked like it would fall apart as soon as he picked it up.

"First years will be sorted first." Professor Longbottom boomed, "First up, Martha Appleton."

The girl we had sat with paled as she walked up slowly to the stool. The professor picked up the hat and smiled encouragingly before Martha sat down on the rickety stool and had the hat placed on her head. Only a few seconds passed before fold opened on the hat and it yelled, "RAVENCLAW!"

All of the exchange students jumped, and a few let out short screams, at the fact that the hat just yelled, much to the entertainment of several seated students. I felt my face heat up but I ignored it. The students wearing blue and bronze all clapped and ushered the young girl over. One by one the first years were pretty much evenly distributed into the four houses, none of them taking a particularly long time. Finally it was the exchange student's turn. Professor pulled another long scroll out of his long robe and announced the first student to be sorted.

"Misty Cortez."

Misty went white next to me and clutched my hand tightly. She worriedly looked up at me, but I just smiled, nodded, and gave her a hand a small squeeze. Professor Longbottom yelled her name again and Misty blushed and quickly made her way to the front of the crowd and up the short stairs to the hat. She sat down and the hat wasn't on her head three seconds before it screamed out, "HUFFFLEPUFF!"

There was a resounding cheer erupted from the students wearing yellow and black on the far right side of the hall. Misty looked a little calmer, but still glanced over at me before getting up to walk over to the table of her new housemates. The sorting continued, the girl Halley from the boat got into Ravenclaw fairly quickly. I tuned out after that and studied the teacher's table. Behind the main table there was a large throne with gold gilding, and seated there was an extremely stern looking woman. She had grey hair pulled back into a tight bun and a long and conservative green dress. Sharp eyes studied the faces of the new students waiting to be sorted. We locked eyes for a moment before I heard, "Emily Miller."

My head snapped back to professor Longbottom and the hat he was holding. I took a steading breath before confidently striding to the stool and smoothly sitting on it. My heart sped up, but I tried to put on a calm mask while the hat was put on my head.

"Well what do we have here?"

What the shit?

"Language dear please, let me have a look at you."

It took me a moment to realize I was hearing the hat, and I'm sure my eyes were wide as saucers.

"Brave, loyal, and kind to your friends. You'd make a decent Gryffindor, but I'm sensing something else too. You are a wonderful and loyal friend, but that's a small pool. You choose your loyalty carefully, and ooh now I see the cleverness. If people think you're a kind darling they'll underestimate you, oh very clever. Obvious."

Out loud it screamed, "SLYTHERIN!"

There was a pause before the applause this time. None of the other exchange students were put in Slytherin. I walked to where the tentative applause was coming from, the students wearing green and grey, and remembered what Lily had told me on the train. Slytherin was usually pureblood students. While it opened up more after the wizard war a few years ago, it was still a pretty exclusive group. My mind raced as I got closer to the table and looked for a place to sit. All the sudden I made eye contact with a tall blonde boy with grey eyes. He offered a small smile and scooted over to give me a spot. I made a beeline for him and took the offered seat. The people around me were weirdly quiet, but the boy next to me whispered over, "Hey, I'm Scorpius."

I looked back over to him and smiled before answering, "Emily."

"Nice to meet you Emily."

We directed our attention back to the ceremony, but only a few people were left. The other girl from our boat, Briar, was put in Gryffindor too much more raucous applause than me. After the last person was sorted, the woman on the throne stood. The whole hall fell silent waiting for her.

"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts. Before dinner, I would like to introduce myself and go over some ground rules for those who are here for the first time. I am Headmistress McGonagall. As you all already know we have a new program going on at Hogwarts this year. I won't get into much detail since either Professor Longbottom or your head of house has already explained it to you. Just remember that I expect all of you to respect and learn from one another. And lastly I would like to remind all student that the Forbidden Forrest is, as it's name suggests, expressly forbidden to students." She glanced over sharply to the Gryffindor table and I heard some snickers. "Now, I won't stand between hungry children and their food, tuck in."

With that all of the empty platters and goblets along the tables suddenly filled with food. I tried not to let my surprise show since everyone else in my house apparently knew this was coming. Behind me I heard a familiar, "Omigod no way."

I spun around searching and saw Misty sitting at the table behind me a few seat spaces down.

"Misty." I stage whispered, but she didn't hear me.

I'd talk to her later. I looked back at the table in front of me and looked at what everyone else was getting. Nothing seemed to be off limits so I loaded my plate up with what was closest, but not too much. I wanted to make a good first impression. Scorpius did the same before turning to me and asking with a big smile, "So, where are you from?"

"New York City." I answered, playing with my green beans, "How about you?"

"I'm from Wiltshire, but that's no where near as cool as New York City! Wow!"

I blushed, "It's really not that big a deal. What's Wiltshire like?"

With that Scorpius went off talking about his home, then his family, and on and on. It passed like this all through dinner, but I periodically looked behind me to check on Misty. There were a couple of other exchange students there that she could sit with, and the Hufflepuff's seemed to be a nice bunch. There were about as many exchange students in Gryffindor, but definitely the brunt of them went to Ravenclaw. I was trying to figure out how to get Misty's attention to check on her without being obvious when I remembered my cell phone in my robe pocket. I got it out and-

No bars. Maybe Facebook?

"Hey Scorpius, what's the Wi-Fi password?" I asked, trying to pick up a Wi-Fi network.

Scorpius looked at me confused, "What's Wi-Fi."

Well, shit.


End file.
